Agents of SHIELD, season 1
Dec. 6th, 2014 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI finished season one of Agents of SHIELD. As much as I liked the first half of the season, they definitely kicked it up a notch in the post-Winter Soldier episodes! Like, I had to stop watching and come back later when Skye realized that Ward was Hydra, because OH MY GOD. The scenes where Skye knows Ward is Hydra and it's not at all clear whether Ward knows she knows, all so tense.
(I also think it's pretty obvious that they're setting Ward up for a redemption arc: his hesitation before jettisoning FitzSimmons, his real love for Skye, even his obvious affection for Garrett (and Garrett's barely-concealed scorn for his softness), all these things scream I HAVE A SOFT MARSHMALLOW UNDERBELLY, REDEEM ME.
Which isn't to say that they're going to do it well - I think an effective redemption arc for Ward would require a more sophisticated grasp of morality than the SHIELD writers seem to have, frankly - but that's clearly where we're going.)
I love everyone in this bar! Except maybe Ward, because he's evil, but maybe he'll get over it, we'll see. I loved FitzSimmons from the start (and now that I've seen Fitz before the accident I am kind of destroyed about the brain damage), but Coulson and May have grown on me to; I spent the first half of the season struggling to connect with May, but then her facade got a tiny little crack for like three seconds and now I am one hundred percent all over that. Stoic badasses who have very very secret feelings (VERY) are my jam.
My take on her fight with Ward at the end is that, insofar as it is personal, it's about his betrayal of the team and not the fact that he jilted her. She clearly never cared about him very much; the only person who suggests she does is Ward, and I think it's because he wants to be loved, far more than because he sees actual evidence that she's fond of him.
It's not a nice thing for her to do, and one of the things that has really grown on me about May is that she doesn't care if people like her (except maaaaaaybe Coulson), and the writers don't care either (I think they like her, because who wouldn't enjoy writing her? But they're not too chuffed if viewers don't share their feeling). So she's good and occasionally kind, but not at all nice. I'd hate to work with her, but it makes her interesting to watch.
And I love the fact that this show is willing to rough the girls up just as much as the guys. (Although I have heard ominous rumblings that maybe Simmons is going to die in season two, and I REFUSE, that is just not allowed.)
I like Skye a lot (look at her face in this icon, she makes all the best faces. She has no sense of dignity, I love it), although a couple of times I nearly drowned in embarrassment for her writers when they decided to tell us about how she's a shining beacon of compassion. Skye has a lot of good qualities, and compassion is occasionally one of them, but Fitz and Simmons and even occasionally Coulson - even sometimes May, in her chilly distant way - often have more of it.
Often I feel like writers, especially TV writers, think that compassion is a fuzzily mystically quality that vaguely attaches itself to characters, particularly female characters, rather than being an actual trait with defined qualities that a character needs to exhibit.
(I'm looking at you, Torchwood writers who apparently believed that Gwen Cooper glowed with compassion! Gwen Cooper who gave her boyfriend retcon and then confessed to cheating on him, so she could wring forgiveness out of him without having to deal with long-term consequences. JESUS CHRIST. Skye never does anything a quarter so egregious, thank God. My choice in shows about world-saving ragtag teams of misfits has gone up over the years!)
I am so tempted to start adding Agents of SHIELD cameos to my Bucky stories, someone please restrain me, I know that MCU fandom has decidedly mixed feelings about this show. (Skye and Bucky team up to throw snowballs at Steve would still be the cutest thing, though. The cutest.)
And this reminds me! I have a new story that I haven't linked yet.
Fic: Suspension
Fandom: Captain America
Rating: PG-13
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
littlerhymes
Sequel to Self-Abuse, Disconnect, Boundaries, Untangle, Give Me Your Hand, and Dominoes. Maybe I should just start linking the series page in the future.
Summary: Steve was incredulous. “Do you think this is what happy and safe feels like?”
Bucky’s gaze fell away from Steve’s, his eyebrows bunching up. Steve had thought he claimed he was happy just to get Steve off his back, but Jesus. Maybe he did.
(I also think it's pretty obvious that they're setting Ward up for a redemption arc: his hesitation before jettisoning FitzSimmons, his real love for Skye, even his obvious affection for Garrett (and Garrett's barely-concealed scorn for his softness), all these things scream I HAVE A SOFT MARSHMALLOW UNDERBELLY, REDEEM ME.
Which isn't to say that they're going to do it well - I think an effective redemption arc for Ward would require a more sophisticated grasp of morality than the SHIELD writers seem to have, frankly - but that's clearly where we're going.)
I love everyone in this bar! Except maybe Ward, because he's evil, but maybe he'll get over it, we'll see. I loved FitzSimmons from the start (and now that I've seen Fitz before the accident I am kind of destroyed about the brain damage), but Coulson and May have grown on me to; I spent the first half of the season struggling to connect with May, but then her facade got a tiny little crack for like three seconds and now I am one hundred percent all over that. Stoic badasses who have very very secret feelings (VERY) are my jam.
My take on her fight with Ward at the end is that, insofar as it is personal, it's about his betrayal of the team and not the fact that he jilted her. She clearly never cared about him very much; the only person who suggests she does is Ward, and I think it's because he wants to be loved, far more than because he sees actual evidence that she's fond of him.
It's not a nice thing for her to do, and one of the things that has really grown on me about May is that she doesn't care if people like her (except maaaaaaybe Coulson), and the writers don't care either (I think they like her, because who wouldn't enjoy writing her? But they're not too chuffed if viewers don't share their feeling). So she's good and occasionally kind, but not at all nice. I'd hate to work with her, but it makes her interesting to watch.
And I love the fact that this show is willing to rough the girls up just as much as the guys. (Although I have heard ominous rumblings that maybe Simmons is going to die in season two, and I REFUSE, that is just not allowed.)
I like Skye a lot (look at her face in this icon, she makes all the best faces. She has no sense of dignity, I love it), although a couple of times I nearly drowned in embarrassment for her writers when they decided to tell us about how she's a shining beacon of compassion. Skye has a lot of good qualities, and compassion is occasionally one of them, but Fitz and Simmons and even occasionally Coulson - even sometimes May, in her chilly distant way - often have more of it.
Often I feel like writers, especially TV writers, think that compassion is a fuzzily mystically quality that vaguely attaches itself to characters, particularly female characters, rather than being an actual trait with defined qualities that a character needs to exhibit.
(I'm looking at you, Torchwood writers who apparently believed that Gwen Cooper glowed with compassion! Gwen Cooper who gave her boyfriend retcon and then confessed to cheating on him, so she could wring forgiveness out of him without having to deal with long-term consequences. JESUS CHRIST. Skye never does anything a quarter so egregious, thank God. My choice in shows about world-saving ragtag teams of misfits has gone up over the years!)
I am so tempted to start adding Agents of SHIELD cameos to my Bucky stories, someone please restrain me, I know that MCU fandom has decidedly mixed feelings about this show. (Skye and Bucky team up to throw snowballs at Steve would still be the cutest thing, though. The cutest.)
And this reminds me! I have a new story that I haven't linked yet.
Fic: Suspension
Fandom: Captain America
Rating: PG-13
Beta:
littlerhymesSequel to Self-Abuse, Disconnect, Boundaries, Untangle, Give Me Your Hand, and Dominoes. Maybe I should just start linking the series page in the future.
Summary: Steve was incredulous. “Do you think this is what happy and safe feels like?”
Bucky’s gaze fell away from Steve’s, his eyebrows bunching up. Steve had thought he claimed he was happy just to get Steve off his back, but Jesus. Maybe he did.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 04:50 pm (UTC)I think you're right there. (And I say that as someone who loves Gwen Cooper, but NOT FOR THAT REASON, MY GOD.)
I've just caught up with AoS, and what you've said here articulates why I love May so much pretty perfectly.
The scenes where Skye knows Ward is Hydra and it's not at all clear whether Ward knows she knows, all so tense.
God, yes! I don't often get that watching-through-my-fingers-because-I'm-not-sure-I-want-to-know-what-happens-next feeling, but those scenes were one of those times.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 12:10 am (UTC)I think there's always going to be a problem with morality tales that are written in shades of gray, because two people are ever going to have the exact same line drawn between what they think are "right" and "wrong" and, like, forgivable and unforgivable offenses. But Jed & Mo actually have a lot of experience writing these kinds of stories.
It seems to me that a lot of fans do like May? But then, I stick to my own happy little corner where the most wank I see is people ranting about fans who support Ward (which I've never personally seen XD).
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 01:42 am (UTC)I want to catch up with season 2 of AOS, but I'm having trouble finding some of the early episodes - I watched episodes 1 and 2 and then gave up because I was lost without all the S1 backstory. Clearly I should have just dived into season 1 right then! Ugh, my choices...
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 01:55 am (UTC)And clearly the characters need to have a dance-off on show. For reasons, man! For reasons.
I think most fans do like May - I think this is often an unintended side effect of writers not worrying too much if a character is likeable, actually, because then the characters seem more raw and real. And also there's no sense that the writers are leaning over your shoulder going "HOW DO YOU LIKE X NOW?", which sometimes makes me feel contrary, like I don't want to like that character just out of spite.
Are there people who think Ward's actions were actually justified? Or does "support" in this case just mean that some people don't think he's composed of 100% pure unadulterated evil?
(Your icon reminds me! I thought Sitwell died in WS when the Winter Soldier tossed him in front of a semi. But then, Rumlow survived having a building fall on him. So is Sitwell still alive out there? Possibly double-agenting?)
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:07 am (UTC)I don't know about Winter Soldier!Bucky, but I think that Skye and WWII!Bucky would get along like a house on fire.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:21 am (UTC)Maybe the snowball thing could happen once Bucky's recovering a little more? I feel like he would find Skye pretty non-threatening, and it might let him let out some of his old playful side.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:27 am (UTC)Yeah, a lot of their stuff is about agency -- how it's lost, how to get it back, etc. (I mean, they wrote for the Spartacus spin-offs, which are about literal slaves, and for Drop Dead Diva, a show about a woman who died and came back in someone else's body) I think it's a fact of our society that it's the white guys who primarily have agency, and who try to take it away from others. So making someone other than a white guy be the oppressor in their stories would be disingenuous and kind of gross.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:37 am (UTC)Yeahhhhh from what I understand, there are a lot of weird justification-y posts disguised as meta in which people say things like that Ward was trying to save Jemma & Fitz by ejecting them from the plane and other things like that.
There's a small but passionate force of us who believe in the continued beneficence and existence of Sitwell! Who, in one comics storyline, was brainwashed by HYDRA & turned against Fury!!!!!! He hasn't even been mentioned yet in S2 & it is DRIVING ME NUTS.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:46 am (UTC)A smart Coulson would send Skye to liaise with Bucky. "Hi, I'm here to run communications on this end. ...Is there a bathroom anywhere?" And by the end it'd be Koosh balls and snow forts all the way down.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 05:48 am (UTC)...you should come talk with me about S2 in my latest LJ entry (http://entwashian.livejournal.com/474560.html) so we're not spamming poor Jin! (And because no one else has replied to it yet & I am sad & lonely.)
Date: 2014-12-07 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-08 12:02 am (UTC)(Gunn was one of the series regulars on Angel; people shipped him with Wesley a lot, although I have no idea if any of the fic still holds up.)